Phew, what a scorcher!
We watched this stage in our own personal heatwave - the UK is experiencing "summer" for a couple of days, and we are not used to it! - and golly, it was exciting.
All the expected things occurred - Sky, in yellow, set a good tempo, no-one else did very much, some early breaks went away and were brought back until the "right" combination of breakaway riders assembled, ie no-one within several minutes of Froome. All went well until Pierre Roland, now sporting Polka Dot jersey, shorts, socks, gloves AND hat, tried to join them in order to stand a chance of getting the 50-odd points for the win. He struggled for nearly an hour to catch them, but they kept speeding up, so in the end Europcar came to the front and started pulling them back, in retaliation.
However, this worked in Sky's favour, as they then sat there having a nice easy ride while Europcar did all the work.
Andy, meanwhile, continued to play his clever game of staying close to Froome, ie near the front of the bunch, out of trouble, and able to see what was going on.
The last two days, incidentally, have been Schleck-free days as far as the commentators were concerned - they did not mention him ONCE! Not once! They even failed to mention that Jakob was in the front bunch and came in the top 10 yesterday! huh! *flounces indignantly*
Today, alas, was not to be Andy's great come-back day, as he was soon seen, partway up the Ventoux, going backwards and wobbling into the gutter.
On our coverage, we keep getting really annoying interruptions from some bloke with a microphone, talking over our commentators. Today, he apparently tried to talk to Andy, while he was failing to climb the Ventoux. Huh, not the best time to attempt an interview!
However, although this looked pretty dire, and despite coming in 10 minutes down on the leader, Andy is still in the top 20 in GC, which is pretty impressive.
He may have lost 10 mins or so, but a lot of people lost a lot more - the grupetto came in more than 32 mins down, and one poor soul, Jonathan Hivert of Sojasun, came in a whopping 50 minutes down - more than 20 mins later than the rest! Poor, poor, man - can you imagine the stress of toiling in more than 20 minutes after the bus, all alone, everyone packing up and going home around you, knowing that the podium presentations are long finished, and that some riders might even be back in their hotel rooms, while he is still struggling upwards. Brave, brave, man. And another week of it to go. Mind you, he's not last in the GC - no, that's our dear pet Schlecklander, Svein Tuft!
After the race, Andy tweets: "OK that was not good but its not the end of the world and not the end of the Tour." Good man, Andy! Yes, we would all have liked to see you zooming up the hill, but if it's not to be, well, blimey, you are still in the top 20, after all!
Having just checked the RadioShambles website, they never cease to annoy me: they have a little report on the day, as you would expect, and they have a series of 7 photos: number 3 is "Tony and Lauren at the top" and number 4 is "Andy near the finish line". Andy came in 39th, Gallopin and Didier came in 56th and 57th, very nearly 17 mins down. So why do Shambles put the photos in such an order that they suggest that Andy came in after the other two?
I know it's a small thing, but it just seems to me that Shamble fail to praise, and seek to undermine, at every opportunity. The sooner Trek take over, the better.
Anyway, that's one climbing day done, today we have a rest day, and then a few more climbing days to go, and there is still time for Andy to win a stage, and some UCI points, which might be useful to increase his value and salary for next year.
Yay!
Yay for Jakob!!! Though like Andy, they don't seem to be too interested in him either, hopefully Andy or Jakob can win a stage and then maybe they will take notice.
ReplyDeleteI agree the bloke talking over the commentators is soooo annoying, they can't hear him talking so they carry on chatting, thank god he doesn't prattle on for very long!
The poor guy that came in 50 mins after the rest, well I know what it's like climbing that mountain, and it's a killer, still he would be faster than me, it took me 2 hrs 45mins but it's worth it when you get to the top...finally
At least Andy is doing better than Cadel, the wheels seem to have fallen off his campaign to win this year.
Michelle
The commentators in Australia also seem to be ignoring Andy this year- I've only heard his name a few times in the whole coverage so far.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I'm beginning to wonder if Froome is really riding clean. He's performing just too much better than everyone else for me to believe in his validity, and that incredible ride up My Ventoux kind of seems too good to be true, even though he was so faint he had to have oxygen at the end of the stage.
I know that both he and Sky have denied doping, but wouldn't everyone?
Emma
Hey Michelle, poor Cadel, I'd forgotten to mention him. He's not having a good year! But is is not nearly always the case that, after having a "super strong" year, they win nothing? PhillyGilly comes to mind...along with any number of riders who had a good year, basked in the glory, then did nothing of note the following year.
ReplyDeleteI imagine it's partly the excitement/parties/interviews/relaxation of intent ("I've done it, phew, I can relax and not train as hard for a while") and partly a natural reaction by their bodies, that have been pushed beyond normal limits for a while, and need to recuperate. Plus they often shift teams the season following major sucess, and that has stresses of its own: new training regimes, new staff, lack of familiarity etc.
Emma, don't start! I am a great supporter of Dave Brailsford, and as he has publicly said, they train for days like Sunday: they go out and ride for 6 hours then do a huge climb. They have a programme of progressively harder work. They go an train at altitude to get used to it. Other riders - you only have to read any of the cycling books to see this - don't have any sort of pattern to their training, they are turned away by the teams and seem to do just what riding they like, maybe with one training camp during the off season. No wonder they can't compete with Sky.
Dave has spent the last 10 years (more, actually) building up UK cyclists to be disciplined and hard-working, using scientific training methods and not taking anything for granted just because "it's always been done this way". Remember the aero helmets? Five years ago, everyone wore huge great tailed things. They were "the best". Sky did some actual testing of their own and established that the little stubby helmets are better. Now all the teams are starting to use them. And that is just one small illustration of his attention to detail.
Froome was not the only one requiring oxygen, of course: so I wouldn't read anything sinister into that. Don't forget that a lot of winning riding is psychological: if you can fool your pursuers into thinking you are super-strong, they don't even try to attack. I think that Sky have reached a point where most of the peloton think they are invincible, so they don't really try hard enough -just look at how many stunned reports there were, along the lines of "blimey, Sky do have weaknesses!" Duuh, of course they do, it's a tribute to Sky's training and presentation that they have managed to convince the peloton that they do NOT have weaknesses! (of course they do, even Kiryenka has turned out to be human and not a robot.)
No, I don't think Sky are doping. They are doing far more than any other team to develop the sport, using tech (helmets, bikes, special fabrics) training (altitude, challenging ideas that riders can only peak once in a season) and great presentation. They pick the best athletes - don't forget, the UK didn't have a pro-team, so in effect Dave had his choice of the entire UK youth cycling movement to select from. He has a good "eye" for a promising athlete, and he is realistic/ruthless enough to let go any that are not up to scratch (remember the end of Sky's first year? Massive clear-out of riders that just didn't make the grade) or who just don't fit - Simon Gerrans was, on paper, a great rider, but he just didn't quite settle at Sky, so they let him go, and now look, he's gone from strength to strength with Orica. Cav, ditto.
Well, that's my view!
Coug